The NYMEX April natural gas futures contract settled Friday at $2.827/MMBtu, up 2.3 cents, continuing a steady rise since February 27 despite an abnormal February injection to gas storage stocks and demand hovering 7 Bcf/d below the five-year average.

Oil closed at the lowest level in more than three weeks as record U.S. crude inventories were seen jeopardizing OPEC’s efforts to drain a global surplus.

Global benchmark Brent LCOc1 was up 19 cents at $55.27 a barrel at 0941 GMT, recovering some of Thursday's losses that amounted to more than 2 percent. WTI futures CLc1 traded at $52.69 a barrel, up 8 cents on the previous close.

World's top crude exporter Saudi Arabia cut April prices of light crude it sells to Asia for the first time in three months in a bid to shore up demand in an oversupplied market, trade sources said.

Benchmark Brent crude oil was down 50 cents a barrel at $55.86 by 1125 GMT. U.S. light crude was 50 cents lower at $53.33.

Light, sweet crude oil prices for April dropped modestly Feb. 24 but still settled at about $54/bbl on Feb. 24 on the New York market despite a climbing US rig count. The US oil futures benchmark has traded at $50-55/bbl for weeks.

The average price of spot LNG imports to Japan contracted in January 2017 was $8.40/mn Btu, up from $8/mn Btu in December 2016, the ministry of economy, trade and industry (Meti) said February 9, their highest level for two years. But Japan's IEEJ says that prices have now peaked.

Benchmark Brent crude LCOc1 was up 50 cents a barrel at $55.62 per barrel by 1130 GMT. U.S. light crude CLc1 was 50 cents higher at $52.84 a barrel.

The executives predicted slower growth as “they forecast oil prices to take a long time to rebound to US$70 per barrel,” the point at which prices started to plunge two years ago, said Wu Yi, DNV’s business development manager for China, South Korea and Japan.

International Brent crude futures LCOc1 were trading at 54.70 per barrel at 0758 GMT, down 35 cents, or 0.64 percent, from their previous close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 was at $51.68 a barrel, down 49 cents, or 0.94 percent.